If Bible is supernatural ==> then God ?
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Let's imagine that the Bible which claims to be written by God (with the properties of creator, perfection, goodness,ect...)
is flawless in any grounds and let's assume we discover a detail therein that proves the author is supernatural.
we'd have 2 major hypothesises: *this book is authored by God.
* As God isn't the only supernatural entity we can conceive of, and that no details in this book definitively shows an author with God's attributes: it could be written by a true sorcerer, spirits, ghosts or E.Ts, ect...
As you can see, the 2nd explanation makes an additional assumption: the writer of that book would be deceiving people by pretending to be God.
Thus, in this case, according to Ockham's razor, would the 1st hypothesis (looking simpler) be more probable than the 2nd one?
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An omnipotent creator of the universe is more likely than a much less grand supernatural being? And the supernatural author would not have to be a deceiver. He could honestly believe in God and just be wrong.
The first hypothesis is not simpler. Not by a long shot. To posit that a supernatural deity made the universe, meddled in the affairs of middle eastern and north African Semitic herdsmen, wants to kill all of the Samaritans and really cares whether you wear cloth made from two kinds of thread or if you are gay is certainly not a simpler proposition. A much lesser supernatural being that honestly believed in the existence of that God or is deceptive isn't a more complex proposition.
And for that matter, I won't believe in either of those two hypothetical beings until some evidence is produced in support of their existence. Without that evidence all we can do is have inane conversations based of series of assumptions.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
Ockham's Razor is not purely about the 'simplest' explanation, the more important test is which one assumes the fewest entirely novel entities and unusual/unlikely attributes.
That other bit that Jormungander mentioned, that when someone makes claims that are incorrect, we always have to allow the possibility of honest error or delusion as well as conscious deception, is something so regularly ignored by Theists.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Your layout is confusing.
You talk about two hypothesis.
ONE: Hypothesis A
VS
TWO: Hypothesis B
Or lay it out like
Example A:
VS
Example B:
I am confused because if I am reading this correctly all your statements propose a god as a starting point and then you ask us to chose between them.
That would be like asking us to chose between Superman or Thor, or chose between Isis and Vishnu.
Occham's razor doesn't defend naked assertions. It is a quality control philosophy to prevent hypothesis from being needlessly convoluted. If both your starting points assume a god, you are fucked because the least convoluted explanation than assuming a god, is that people make them up and falsely believe them to be fact, which the graveyard of myth gives us ample evidence of.
If you have your choice between the following, WHICH seems to be the least confabulated and least convoluted?
1. I can fart a Lamborghini out of my ass. I am real, Lamborghini's are real, so therefore this statement is true?
VS.
2. I made the first statement up?
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There is no way a text can prove that the author is 'supernatural'. The most you could have is information which, as far as we know, could not possibly have been known by people of the time it dates from, such as a very detailed prediction. That proves absolutely nothing about the author, or even if there was just one author. Any such information could be the result of a message from an alien civilization, maybe even across time via wormhole or some wierd quantum effect. Nothing supernatural absolutely required, let alone any more traditional 'God' attributes like 'goodness'.
An alien civilization with superior knowledge is way more acceptable to Occam's Razor, since we know civilzations are possible, and there is no reason why there cannot be more than one.
Time travel is more questionable, but is a relatively modest stretch beyond current physics compared to a Creator God being.
BTW, 'perfection' is not an attribute itself, it is a statement that some actual attribute exactly matches some standard version of the attribute in question, and so can apply to quite ordinary attributes. It says nothing about whether anything is supernatural or not. That depends on the nature of the actual attributes themselves, regardless of whether or not they exactly match some ideal.
The scenario is basically not intelligible, as described.
EDITED
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Well, the book could contain magic spells that work or something, and therefore be written by something with supernatural powers. I think that's more like what he's talking about.
And of the OP: No. Something more fantastic wouldn't be more likely than something less fantastic. There would be no reason to assume infinite power caused a finite supernatural event.
I can see you might have a point there, but it still would not prove that the author was supernatural, only that they had access to some arcane 'Harry Potter' style knowledge.
If magic could be contained in a special sequence of ordinary characters, that would manifest simply by speaking the words, that really would mean that Harry Potter was more likely to be real than God.
Maybe if the book had text that appeared and disappeared, danced around, etc, like it could in those stories, it would be maybe 'supernatural' itself, or perhaps just some advanced alien version of the Kindle e-book reader.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
I vote for this version.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
If the bible were written by god, and it was perfect, then the whole world would be going to hell, because no one goes by the bible. Well if they did, they are in jail or in a mental institute.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin